Offerspill news - week 22

There's plenty to report this week.

We'll start with the fact that Magnus Carlsen beat Wesley So in an exciting final match in the FTX Crypto Cup. Second, the May season of the Offerspill Online League came to a close this week. There's a new "Opening of the Week", and Magnus has given a couple of interesting interviews.

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FTX Crypto Cup: Magnus beats So in Armageddon

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but Magnus Carlsen won the sixth tournament of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour after beating Wesley So in an "absolutely insane" final match which was only decided in Armageddon.

This was the third time Carlsen and So faced each other in a final of the tour, and So was inches away from scoring his third victory in a row against the World Champion

World championship contenter Ian Nepomniachtchi defeated Teimour Radjabov in the match for third place.

Below is the first game of the final the day where the world champion showed how positions with opposite-coloured bishops can favour the attacker.

Carlsen - So (1-0)


Ian Nepomniachtchi won the fight for 3rd place after a series of fighting games against Teimour Radjabov.


Read more about the tournament at Chess24.

Magnus talks match preparations

With just over six months until the World Championship between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi starts in Dubai, the world champion says he is "100 percent motivated" and that he has mentally started to prepare for the long-awaited match. The 30-year old also hints he has started the hunt for a new team of seconds that will help him prepare.

Read the full interview here.

Magnus ranks the World Champions

How does World Champion Magnus Carlsen rate his great predecessors as World Chess Champions on factors such as genius, entertainment, influence, and even sanity?

You can find out in a series of short videos on Chess24 made for the New in Chess Classic tournament where Magnus rated the 11th to 16th World Champions - including Kramnik, Fischer and himself!

He also spent some time discussing the two greatest female players of all time, namely Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan.

You don't want to miss this - watch it here.

Offerspill Online League: May

A terrific season of our Online League has come to an end and it's about time to get an overview of all the winners.

Overall standings

Congratulations to Jefforever, M-P-M, and TraintoBusan for their podum finishes. Also, note that the World Champion finished 10th having only played one tournament - impressive!

U2200

An impressive feat by Flugg who managed to win the group, if ever so narrowly. With a 7th place as the best finish it is evident that Flugg has been focused on achievements as well. Astralex and MasterChessDojo both claimed podium finishes, but it was very close with Puddingsjakk finishing just outside of the top three.

Under 1700


Another very tight group with the winner joafug76 playing the most tournaments in the grup, shared with bronze winner Lecram27.

Congratulations to all!

Today, on the 6th of June, there will be a new thematic blitz tournament starring the French Defense: Tarrasch Variation as our chosen opening for this week's tournament.

We prepared an introductory video on YouTube.

Opening of the Week

This week we have chosen a funny one - an opening used by Magnus Carlsen among others, namely 1.b4 with the white pieces.


The Polish Opening, Sokolsky, or Organgutan as it is also called, does open a line of development for the bishop, but white will never have any trouble developing the bishop to b2 in other chess openings, if that is where he wants it to go.  There are many mainstream openings where white focuses on controlling the center first, and later plays b3 and Bb2.

Furthermore, this pawn on b4 has no natural defender. As soon as black moves the e-pawn, the white pawn on b4 will immediately be under attack by black’s dark-squared bishop - watch out for this.

All these factors combine to make this opening a very rare guest in high-level chess – but it certainly has its followers, and one of the main avantages of the opening is that it will take your opponent to unknown territory immediately!

Let’s take a look at how the game may proceed.

Theory

Carlsen - So (0-1)

The Polish Opening is sure to catch many unprepared opponents off-guard - good luck!